Parametric Toy Bricks: Make Toy Bricks of Any Size with Lattice2
This project gives some background and resources to the project to create a fully parametric toy brick that can be configured to make any size of brick with the minimum size of 2 x 2. Driven by a spreadsheet and using FreeCAD the designer can change the parameters in the spreadsheet resulting in the brick changing to the desired size and the studs, nubs and tubes dynamically reconfigure to create a new brick.
Both parts of the tutorial can be found on my channel at
PART 1:
PART 2:
The technical drawing is below:
1. Unable to shrink this down to a 2 x 2 brick which has four studs and one tube. The linear pattern in the multi-transform requires more than one feature otherwise it errors. This only allowed for bricks that had no smaller than two tubes on the base.
2. The speed of calculations and rendering was reduced because the the pattern features not being optimised as say the draft array tools in the draft workbench. This meant that I either had to use a part design or part workflow along with the draft workbench array tools when it came to these transforms or I could use a different workbench that specialised in repeating patterns. This is where the Lattice workbench comes in.
Setbacks like this I don't see as a waste of time, it's all about the learning and generating new ideas for future videos. Out of this set back I have decided to create a video to compare the array tools in each of the said workbenches with speed comparisons and how to use these other workbenches in the part design workflow.
Both parts of the tutorial can be found on my channel at
PART 1:
PART 2:
The technical drawing is below:
Design Log
First tests with the part design workbench though successful had the following flaws:1. Unable to shrink this down to a 2 x 2 brick which has four studs and one tube. The linear pattern in the multi-transform requires more than one feature otherwise it errors. This only allowed for bricks that had no smaller than two tubes on the base.
2. The speed of calculations and rendering was reduced because the the pattern features not being optimised as say the draft array tools in the draft workbench. This meant that I either had to use a part design or part workflow along with the draft workbench array tools when it came to these transforms or I could use a different workbench that specialised in repeating patterns. This is where the Lattice workbench comes in.
Setbacks like this I don't see as a waste of time, it's all about the learning and generating new ideas for future videos. Out of this set back I have decided to create a video to compare the array tools in each of the said workbenches with speed comparisons and how to use these other workbenches in the part design workflow.
Making the move to Lattice 2
Moving to the lattice workbench resulted in a workflow that was much more stable. Using both part and lattice the workflow was built in a linear way with a final fusion using lattice tools. The results was a solid model which can be further modified with Boolean operations whilst still keeping its parametric capabilities. I referenced all geometry back to the thickness as the amount of faces and edges always stayed the same so would the identifiers. All sketches and extrudes that needed an external geometry reference for placement and length were used against this thickness so would not be subjected to topological naming issues.
A full two part tutorial, as mentioned earlier has been created and is available on my Youtube Channel.Why Use Lattice 2 in General?
As a users of freeCAD we have more than likely looked though the long list of addon workbenches and have come across lattice or lattice2. We may of seen someone mention the workbench on the forum but it often gets buried in the avalanche of questions from creators trying to adopt freeCAD and wrestling with the basics. But what is Lattice and why does it exist?
Lattice2 is all about arrays / compounds and placements. The idea is to take a object or a compound of multiple objects (also known as an array) and distribute across a array of placements whether it be linear, circular, following a path or custom. This may sound boring but if you look at everyday life then you can see where it can be used and that is everywhere.
To unlock the potential of Lattice2 Workbench I decided to go on a research trip to a local industrial estate to photograph as many things that I could use to model in the workbench. I started in a local home-ware shop. The staff must of got suspicious because I spent a good hour photographing anything with a repeating pattern or a lattice structure. I soon realised this include form and not just detail. I was soon taking pictures of things not just on sale; architecture, bins, linking tiles, even chairs built up in section. Windows repeating across a wall can be created in lattice, bollards, brick work, the list goes on. By that time staff were starting to ask questions so it was time to move on and continue taking pictures outside; textures, repeating patterns on utility covers, car grills, the hatching on a police car paint work, the Sargent stripes on the shoulder of a police officer jacket, the cage in the back of the police car .... I think I better leave!
But why would you want to create such things? Shouldn't a copy paste be sufficient? Well lets try a simple exercise, try creating a 50 x 50 or even a 20 x 20 grid of circles in the sketcher with constraints, painful isn't it? Not just that it takes so long to get the positioning right using the array sketch tools but the cpu works overtime and your PC grinds to a halt. Now try this in lattice, all we need is one circle in our sketch. With this circle we create a linear pattern and set the count to 20. We create a line of 20 circles by selecting the sketch and the linear array and populate with copies. Then we create another linear array again with a count of 20 and use the newly create pattern against the linear array and populate with array of copies. We now have a 20 x 20 grid which took us a 10th of the time to create and we can move, rotate etc without any slowdown of the cpu! We could extrude or we can do the exact same process with a extruded circle.
As you can see lattice helps reduce cpu processing time and opens up the door to more complex modelling. This is reason number 1 why you need lattice in your modeling.
Lattice2 is all about arrays / compounds and placements. The idea is to take a object or a compound of multiple objects (also known as an array) and distribute across a array of placements whether it be linear, circular, following a path or custom. This may sound boring but if you look at everyday life then you can see where it can be used and that is everywhere.
To unlock the potential of Lattice2 Workbench I decided to go on a research trip to a local industrial estate to photograph as many things that I could use to model in the workbench. I started in a local home-ware shop. The staff must of got suspicious because I spent a good hour photographing anything with a repeating pattern or a lattice structure. I soon realised this include form and not just detail. I was soon taking pictures of things not just on sale; architecture, bins, linking tiles, even chairs built up in section. Windows repeating across a wall can be created in lattice, bollards, brick work, the list goes on. By that time staff were starting to ask questions so it was time to move on and continue taking pictures outside; textures, repeating patterns on utility covers, car grills, the hatching on a police car paint work, the Sargent stripes on the shoulder of a police officer jacket, the cage in the back of the police car .... I think I better leave!
But why would you want to create such things? Shouldn't a copy paste be sufficient? Well lets try a simple exercise, try creating a 50 x 50 or even a 20 x 20 grid of circles in the sketcher with constraints, painful isn't it? Not just that it takes so long to get the positioning right using the array sketch tools but the cpu works overtime and your PC grinds to a halt. Now try this in lattice, all we need is one circle in our sketch. With this circle we create a linear pattern and set the count to 20. We create a line of 20 circles by selecting the sketch and the linear array and populate with copies. Then we create another linear array again with a count of 20 and use the newly create pattern against the linear array and populate with array of copies. We now have a 20 x 20 grid which took us a 10th of the time to create and we can move, rotate etc without any slowdown of the cpu! We could extrude or we can do the exact same process with a extruded circle.
As you can see lattice helps reduce cpu processing time and opens up the door to more complex modelling. This is reason number 1 why you need lattice in your modeling.
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